Goodbye 2014. Welcome 2015.

We've reached the last Sunday of 2014. That time of year when we look back at the year gone by and plan for the year we're about to usher in. That time of year when we make our New Year's resolutions.

For 2015, I have just 1 resolution. To not have any resolutions. This year I plan not to plan, but rather to "Just Do It".

Here's wishing you and yours a Happy and Eventful 2015 filled with joy and happiness.

Gifts I'd like from Santa

 

Its that time of year when you give and sometimes get gifts. Here's my list of 5 of the favorite things I'd like to get from Santa. For some strange reasons Santa doesn't listen to Adult wishes, but nothing stops us from hoping for the next few days.

Chromecast
Chromecast is a thumb-sized media streaming device that plugs into the HDMI port on your TV. Simply use an Android phone, tablet, iPhone®, iPad®, Mac or Windows laptop, or Chromebook to cast your favorite entertainment and apps right to the big screen.

Smart Watch
A smart watch allows your app notifications and personal information come with you, like flight status and messages. And when you say “OK Google,” you can ask a question about anything, from turn-by-turn navigation steps to team stats—even find out your heart rate.Just when you thought wrist watches were passe, they're back.

GoPro Camera
With stunning image quality and powerful new features, the GoPro cameras take video recording to a whole new level. The cameras have an incredible high-resolutions and high frame rates. A built-in touch display completes the perfect camera package that makes amateurs into professional photographers.

Photographic Drone
A good drone is one that is easy to control while having great battery life and range, terrific safety features, and a smartphone app that lets you preview your on-drone camera for photography and piloting ease.

Robotic house cleaner
This is what everyone would love to have. Imagine the cleaning being done by a robot.

All of the above is greed. I need none of it. But I can make a difference, albeit a small one. And here are 2 gifts I'd like to continue to give.

a. Enabling a few families get decent meals.
b. Enabling a few kids get an education

And this is something I'll continue to work on over the next year to do in a small but sustainable way.

Happy Holidays !

Supporting Open Source Initiatives

In the last few weeks I noticed a new message pop up in 2 of the services I use most frequently. Mozilla Firefox, the browser and Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. Maybe because its that time of the year which is the time for giving and everyone is expecting you to give.

Here's what the Mozilla Firefox message said:
"Hello there: We know you love Firefox, but did you know a non-profit called Mozilla built Firefox? Thanks to donations, Mozilla does a lot more than build this awesome browser. We teach people to code, fight for online privacy, and protect this amazing thing called the Web for future generations. Just a few times a year Mozilla asks for donations, and tens of thousands of people all over the world give. If they didn't, we couldn't do all this good stuff. If everyone reading this chipped in just a few dollars we could wrap this fundraiser up in under an hour. You can make a donation here. Thank you."

And this was what was on the top of the Wikipedia page"
"Wikipedia is one of the top sites on the web and serves 500 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.

If everyone reading this donated, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder"

What I found intriguing was that the number of users using bot these amazing products are so many that their fundraising could be done in under an hour, yet doesn't get done for a year.

All of us talk a lot about freedom and choice and how we should be paid for every little thing we do. Its a little sad that most of us don't think twice about buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks, a coffee that gives us a little pleasure for a few minutes. Yet so few of us are willing to reach out into our pockets for a couple of dollars to give to initiatives that we use multiple times a day, day after day, month after month and year after year.

I've practiced what I'm preaching and have done my bit. Will you ?

Hunger in America

Last week at a family dinner during a discussion poverty and hunger came up. And Frank made a comment that over 10% of people in the US went hungry. I didn't believe the numbers. I've always thought that the issue of poverty and hunger only exists in developing countries and the Western developed countries are free of it. As it turns out Frank was wrong. He underestimated the number at 10%. It was over 16%.

As a follow up to our conversation Frank sent me the link to a non profit Feeding America. It was an extremely interesting website that not only made available all the relevant data, but was heling reduce the problem and allowing participation by each of us.

Here are some shocking data points about hunger and poverty:

Hunger and poverty often go hand in hand, but poverty is not the ultimate determinant of food insecurity. People living above the poverty line are often at risk of hunger as well. Research demonstrates that unemployment, rather than poverty, is a better predictor of food insecurity among people living in the United States.

The most recent government data collected shows that in 2012,

• 46.5 million people (15 percent) were in poverty, including 16.1 million (22 percent) children under the age of 18.
• 49 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, including nearly 16 million children.

According to the Feeding America Hunger in America 2014 study,

• Based on annual income, 72 percent of all Feeding America client households live at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty line.
• The median annual household income of Feeding America clients is $9,175.
• More than half of client households (54 percent) report at least one employed person at some point in the past year.

Source: feedingamerica.org

You can check out more details at:
http://www.feedingamerica.org/

Pope Francis

Pope Francis became Pope in March 2013. In less than 2 years he has managed to win hearts and minds all over the world. Not only has he managed to capture the imagination of Catholics, he has managed to  get ex Catholics once again interested in listening and rethinking.

Pope Francis simplicity and humility which he practices more than preaches makes for an extremely refreshing and previously unseen approach to the papacy.

His observations about evolution, divorce, gays and lesbians, social issues and a myriad of topics are reasonable, practical and forward thinking. A complete contrast to the rare comments that traditionally had been emerging from the Vatican.

In a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Science, the Pope said that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang were not incompatible with the existence of a creator. He held that the scientific theory of the beginning of the earth was accurate as opposed to the conservatively held belief of the earth being created in 7 days by God.

"The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it."

He went on to say that evolution was
"more than a hypothesis" and "effectively proven fact".

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/pope.francis.backs.science.against.creationism.in.vatican.speech/42268.htm

Pope Francis has managed to change the catholic church and its traditional unwillingness to be forward thinking and practical and insistence on being literal in its interpretations. Pope Francis has made the Catholic church modern, meaningful and relevant.

e-Upvas

This month was my vegetarian month. At dinner today, a friend noticed I was being a vegetarian and checked about it. I told him about my plan of doing something different for a month, and that this month was the "Vegetarian Month". He found it interesting and mentioned another friend of his who was practicing e-Upvas. I found that fascinating and a great idea. An idea I hope to implement at least once a month, if not once a week.

So what is e-Upvas, leads us to the more basic question, What is Upvas ?.

Upvas is a Sanskrit word, used in Hindi for "fast". The Indian Heritage Research Foundation says this:

"In Sanskrit, the word for fast is Upvas. This literally means, "sitting near to..." Sitting near to whom? Near to God.

Fasting is a time in which our bodies are light, a time in which our vital energy is not being dissipated through the process of consumption and digestion, a time in which we are free from the heaviness and lethargy resulting from overindulgence."

http://ihrf.com/messages/fasting-its-meaning-and-purpose.html

And e-Upvas is "Electronic Upvas", or an electronic fast. A period of a day when we avoid all electronic items. The primary ones would be the Phone, Laptop, PC's, Tablets, Kindles and other e-books, TV, ...

As the myriad benefits of an Upvas, I feel that e-Upvas will have similar benefits. My guess is that the 2 primary benefits would be doing other things. Such as reading, going for walks, going to a movie, ... The other would be to appreciate the usefulness of the devices we have and getting into a habit of using them wisely and effectively.

School & College : Do we need it ?

Earlier this week I met with Tony and Tom from Mazz Media. They have over 30 Years of experience in the Educational Media and have won hundreds of industry awards for excellence including an Emmy® Award.

What distinguished them was not that, but the fact that they enjoyed what they did which was teaching kids. You can check them out at
http://mazz.com/

We got around to discussing kids with different learning abilities, a topic close to my heart due to Reia. As it turned out, it was close to Tony's heart too because his daughter's a Special ED teacher and one of his grand-kids too has ADHD.

We figured that the biggest challenge was not the lids. They were good learners. It was the system. Ignacio Estrade put it beautifully "If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn."

And that led to another conversation. Is school and college as we know it required to lead to a successful career and life. As it turned out, the answer is No. And its been represented and talented about by several people. Here are my 3 favorites, not coincidentally all TED talks on the subject.



And now I have the challenge of explaining to Reia why going to college is actually a good idea.

Hackschooling makes me happy : Logan LaPlante

School is optional : Ken Danford

How schools kill creativity : Sir Ken Robinson